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TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

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Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#131

Post by ryandrake »

turc1656 wrote: post #104
wool_gather wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What complicated rules? The basic 1040 is perfectly straightforward, even if you have a few sources of income or special deductions/credits.

If you do it quick and dirty, then yeah. But I am pretty sure most people would find even the 1040 a bit intimidating. The problem is that the tax code is more than 75,000 pages long. No one knows all of it and there are parts that are up to interpretation and self-categorization. If you want to basically ignore all that (legally) you can go the quick and dirty way and just take the standard deductions and exemptions…

Just curious: how much do you pay your accountant? A single federal/state personal return done by a pro goes for anywhere between $400 and $800 around here, compared to $80 or so with TurboTax. I can’t imagine the difference between an accountant and me doing my taxes to be more than that, especially with a “not terribly complicated” return. Are your taxes really hundreds of dollars less just from hiring a sorcerer to do them?

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#132

Post by gizmo385 »

turc1656 wrote: post #104
wool_gather wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What complicated rules? The basic 1040 is perfectly straightforward, even if you have a few sources of income or special deductions/credits.

If you do it quick and dirty, then yeah. But I am pretty sure most people would find even the 1040 a bit intimidating. The problem is that the tax code is more than 75,000 pages long. No one knows all of it and there are parts that are up to interpretation and self-categorization. If you want to basically ignore all that (legally) you can go the quick and dirty way and just take the standard deductions and exemptions…

> But to do it "properly" for most people - where properly means getting the most back that you can legally get back - then it's quite cumbersome and involves a lot of reading.

I would bet that the majority of Americans get more back through the standard deduction than with itemized deductions.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#133

Post by turc1656 »

gizmo385 wrote: post #132
turc1656 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do it quick and dirty, then yeah. But I am pretty sure most people would find even the 1040 a bit intimidating. The problem is that the tax code is more than 75,000 pages long. No one knows all of it and there are parts that are up to interpretation and self-categorization. If you want to basically ignore all that (legally) you can go the quick and dirty way and just take the standard deductions and exemptions…

> But to do it "properly" for most people - where properly means getting the most back that you can legally get back - then it's quite cumbersome and involves a lot of reading. I would bet that the majority of Americans get more back through the standard deduction than with itemized deductions.

Agree, but there's more than just itemization that can be done.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#134

Post by OrgNet »

linuxasheviller wrote: post #109
OrgNet wrote: post #45

H&R Block try to get you to pay at every other page while you are filling your return... But I still went with them because the last 2 years I filled the forms online at a couple different companies and H&R Block was getting me more back.

Taxes: Where we openly brag about finding ways to contribute less to society.

Taxes: where the government keeps finding new ways to make you overpay....

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#135

Post by clarkmoody »

turc1656 wrote: post #65
1024core wrote: post #8

The real dark pattern is their ability to bribe the Congress into preventing IRS from implementing free filing.

Nah, you're missing the forest when looking at the trees. Go bigger. Why the hell is the tax code so damn complicated that it requires certified experts and special software to perform personal tax filings? I can see the case for a complex code for business taxes since there are many different industries that have different rules. But personal returns should never, ever have such complicated rules. And that doesn't m…

Gotta pass out special privileges. With complexity comes opportunity.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#136

Post by mpolichette »

alehul wrote: post #3

In my experience this year, TurboTax prompted me that I could save money by upgrading to a paid plan via taking advantage of some extra deduction. I thought, "if it's going to save me more than I pay for it, why not?" I clicked through and found that this deduction wouldn't actually save me any money. I then couldn't find a way to get back to the free plan (they only charge you after you file, so this should be possi…

What?! You can't just "start a new account" can you? What if you used their other services, which they use a single sign on for?

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#137

Post by Gaelan »

dentemple wrote: post #123
briffle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to try CreditKarma's free filing, but since its free, I'm the product, and i'm not sure what that means, when handing them all my tax info yet..

Mate, even when you do pay for services, you're still getting your data sold to third-party vendors. So you might as well utilize companies that provide an actually good product.

Do the offline/desktop versions of TurboTax, etc do this? Not arguing, just surprised

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#138

Post by turc1656 »

ryandrake wrote: post #131
turc1656 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do it quick and dirty, then yeah. But I am pretty sure most people would find even the 1040 a bit intimidating. The problem is that the tax code is more than 75,000 pages long. No one knows all of it and there are parts that are up to interpretation and self-categorization. If you want to basically ignore all that (legally) you can go the quick and dirty way and just take the standard deductions and exemptions…

Just curious: how much do you pay your accountant? A single federal/state personal return done by a pro goes for anywhere between $400 and $800 around here, compared to $80 or so with TurboTax. I can’t imagine the difference between an accountant and me doing my taxes to be more than that, especially with a “not terribly complicated” return. Are your taxes really hundreds of dollars less just from hiring a sorcerer t…

I used to use TurboTax and painstakingly enter everything imaginable and read everything to make sure I wasn't missing anything and would consistently get back around $4,500 to $5,000 in total between Federal and state. Using him, we got back $6,500 total. Also, with the Trump tax changes taking effect, a bunch of coworkers of mine said they got screwed and got back like half of what they used to get back. A few said they were about on par. We got back more than usual.

He actually just does them for free because my wife has an LLC in her name and we pay him to do the LLC taxes and other stuff. And he said the hardest part is doing the LLC work and we were already paying him for that - so since our returns were actually quite simple he'd just file them for us because the hard part was done (and paid for). Not sure what it normally goes for. I think you're correct that it's around $400, though. And in that case, we definitely net out much more than the $400 we would be paying if we were paying. I'm sure every situation is different, but for us it's a clear win. And if you're wondering - no we aren't funneling losses through the LLC or anything like that. The LLC is profitable and only increases our income which is why we figured we would get screwed like my coworkers with the tax changes, but somehow did not.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#139

Post by username223 »

rayiner wrote: post #119
username223 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norquist is just twisted, sabotaging the government to convince people that it doesn't work. It would cost the IRS almost nothing to send out pre-filled forms, and giving them enough money to audit the wealthy (i.e. ensure they aren't cheating) would more than pay for itself.

There may be many arguments in favor of having the IRS sending out pre-filled-in tax forms, but this one just isn't true: > It would cost the IRS almost nothing to send out pre-filled forms Enhancing the IRS databases to actually plug in the information used on a typical tax return almost certainly would not cost "almost nothing." Back when it existed, less than 20% of people filed a 1040-EZ (the simplest tax form).…

The US government currently takes in about $1.7 trillion in individual income taxes per year, so even spending $500 million to pre-fill forms would be almost nothing (0.03%). Heck, that's less than a useless aircraft carrier or a Facebook consent decree violation.

The IRS already has W-2s and 1099s, which cover ordinary pay and retirement investments, and enough money has probably been automatically withheld already. Remember that this isn't automatic billing, but automatic filling. They'll send you the form, and you can insert the number of children. If your taxes are much more complicated than that, you can probably afford TurboTax.

Re: TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes

#140

Post by smacktoward »

rayiner wrote: post #119
username223 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norquist is just twisted, sabotaging the government to convince people that it doesn't work. It would cost the IRS almost nothing to send out pre-filled forms, and giving them enough money to audit the wealthy (i.e. ensure they aren't cheating) would more than pay for itself.

There may be many arguments in favor of having the IRS sending out pre-filled-in tax forms, but this one just isn't true: > It would cost the IRS almost nothing to send out pre-filled forms Enhancing the IRS databases to actually plug in the information used on a typical tax return almost certainly would not cost "almost nothing." Back when it existed, less than 20% of people filed a 1040-EZ (the simplest tax form).…

> Back when it existed, less than 20% of people filed a 1040-EZ (the simplest tax form). That means you need something beyond just "plug in the numbers from the W-2" for the vast majority of tax filers.

Or it means that lots of people who qualified to use the 1040-EZ didn't know about it.

Or it means that lots of people who qualified to use the 1040-EZ kept on filing 1040s because that's what they were used to doing.

Or it means that lots of people who qualified to use the 1040-EZ were using tax software that just generated a 1040 for everyone, regardless of their eligibility to use the 1040-EZ.

Etc.

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